Junkfit

Having a gym membership or a personal trainer always seemed like a burdensome luxury. With all my other expenses, I couldn’t reconcile the idea of shelling out cash to make myself miserable. It wasn’t until I hit what felt like rock bottom that I saw the value in being religiously physically active. I was in the midst of a deep, undiagnosed depression. I hardly had the time to schedule a physical, let alone sit down with a therapist. Meanwhile, my self-efficacy was for the first time in life, non-existent. After skimming over some self-help articles, I noticed one recurring proclamation:

‘Exercise induces endorphins’.

“Boy, could I use some of those” I thought. I began with squats. I’d do like 100 every 10 days, feel the soreness the next day and flake on the whole mission. It wasn’t that I wasn’t willing or didn’t want to follow through, I just didn’t know how. After starting and restarting for about two years (longest contemplation period ever) I decided I needed to buy into it. I took my humble earnings and gave them to CRUNCH. They offered one free training session and those sparkly specialty classes like pole dancing and sculpting. I was in the gym all the time, making nice with trainers and making myself at home. Learning all the in’s and out’s of fitness was fun but seeing my results was the real cherry on top. I became stronger and my true physique began to show. It occurred to me that all my life, I’d never learned the importance of health and staying fit and that my story is undoubtedly similar to, if not exactly the same as, many other women of color. Along my journey I’ve collected nutritional and spiritual gems that I want to share with other women and thus came JUNKFIT.

JUNKFIT, pronounced junk•fit, means keeping the junk in the trunk healthy and fit! It means embracing our collective experiences and being the best women we can be, inside out. It is the black girl’s guide to well-being.